Red light cameras have been controversial throughout their lifetime. Besides angering motorists, there isn’t much evidence that they work as intended. Los Angeles is now considering getting rid of the cameras as more and more evidence shows that accidents increase at intersections with red light cameras.
An audit last year questioned the effectiveness of the program, finding that a majority of citations have gone uncollected. Commissioner Alan Skobin says that since the courts don’t pursue drivers who refuse to pay the tickets, the camera program lacks enforcement power.
The board’s decision could shut down the cameras in days unless the City Council decides to strip the commission of its authority on the issue and decide whether to continue the program.
I suspect if the city of Los Angeles had a way to enforce these cameras and collect the fines, they might not be taken down as a waste of money.
The new LAPD patrol car is a Chevy Caprice that will include a license plate scanner, night vision camera, and a touch screen console.
You can see in the video below just how these cars will work.
In addition to horsepower and firepower, the cruiser is also outfitted with the latest in information technology, with ethernet, Wi-Fi and an experimental wireless-mesh network in the trunk.
Even the bad guys can ride in comfort: cut-outs in the back seat are custom-made to accommodate any handcuffed suspect.
LAPD officials say vehicle wrapping was used on all-black sedans instead of traditional paint to minimize repair expenses and protect resale value. This brings the expected taxpayer cost to be about $20,000.
Drivers can expect to see the new 2012 Chevrolet Caprice PPV cruising city streets as early as mid-2011.
Not only is the city of Los Angeles broke, the entire state of California is broke. Yet, somehow, the police get fancy new cars at a huge taxpayer cost. The taxpayers get fleeced while real criminals continue with their regular schedule. Given the amount of equipment added to the car as well as the size of the engine and the taxpayers will continue to be on the hook for the terrible gas mileage this car is going to get.
In addition to that, the article is not entirely specific on the cost. This car is normally closer to $30,000 so it appears disingenuous to say the car costs less, fully loaded than it really does. Apparently, the $20,000 is what it will cost to wrap the car or possibly the cost of the additions before the cost of the car is added to it. The real total would be closer to $50,0000-60,000.
Privacy issues will also arise once the police spend all their time automatically scanning license plates and create a location database of cars on the road. In the end, these new cars will be a huge burden on the taxpayers and an invasion of privacy to anyone driving on the streets of LA.
Guards at the Los Angeles County jail complex in Castaic will start using a newfangled weapon that produces a deep burning sensation — which is not to be confused with a “warm fuzzy feeling” — in whomever it is aimed at.
The 7 1/ More..2-foot-tall “Assault Intervention Device,” which sheriff’s deputies demonstrated Friday at the Pitchess Detention Center, emits an invisible beam that causes an unbearable sensation, reported the Daily News.
The device will be mounted near the ceiling in a unit housing about 65 inmates, sheriff’s Cmdr. Bob Osborne of the sheriff’ Technology Exploration Program told the newspaper.
“We hope that this type of technology will either cause an inmate to stop an assault or lessen the severity of an assault by them being distracted by the pain as a result of the beam,” said Osborne. “So that we have fewer injuries, fewer assaults, those kinds of things.”
Deputies have tested the device on themselves and say the invisible beam is painful — especially when it’s not expected.
“I equate it to opening an oven door and feeling that blast of hot air, except instead of being all over me, it’s more focused,” said Osborne.
The pain stops when you move out of the beam’s path, which people do instinctively.
The device, developed by Raytheon, is controlled by a joystick and computer monitor and emits a beam about the size of a CD up to distances of about 100 feet.
The energy traveling at the speed of light penetrates the skin up to 1/64 of an inch deep. No one can stand being in the beam’s path for more than about three seconds, Mike Booen of Raytheon told the Daily News.
The device is being evaluated for a period of six months by the National Institute of Justice for use in jails nationwide.
Sheriff’s deputies are getting to try it out for free.
About 3,700 inmates are housed at Pitchess, where 257 inmate-on-inmate assaults occurred in the first half of the year
Last May, the University of California at Berkeley asked incoming freshmen to voluntarily submit blood samples for DNA testing. The university said it was to help determine which genes controlled the body’s responses to alcohol, dairy products and folic acid. The change in the policy isn’t that they won’t be requesting the samples, but that no one will receive individual results. Because the university must comply with regulations, they will only reveal the collective results of all students who give samples.
In response to a state Public Health Department ruling on how DNA samples should be handled, UC Berkeley scientists reluctantly abandoned the idea to have freshmen and transfer students individually and confidentially learn about three of their own genetic traits. Instead, only collective results for all the 1,000 or so participants will be available and discussed at the orientation seminars next month.
Mark Schlissel, UC Berkeley’s dean of biological sciences and an architect of the DNA program, said he disagreed with the state Department of Public Health’s ruling that the genetic testing required advance approval from physicians and should be done only by specially-licensed clinical labs, not by university technicians. The campus could not find labs willing to do the work and probably could not afford it anyway, Schlissel said. He also contended that the project deserved an exemption from those rules because it was an educational exercise.
The university offered to test the gene variations that affect people’s reactions to three substances: alcohol, lactose and folic acid. Students were asked to provide the school with a swab of cells from inside the mouth.
Berkeley officials contend that the test results would not be medically significant. But the program was controversial with privacy advocates and ethicists complaining that it presented an unprecedented and disturbing use of genetic data by a university.
Many students had felt that they were coerced into giving a saliva sample and that the program was not really voluntary. Berkeley has promised that they will destroy the samples once the tests are completed, however some questions still linger. Many are still unsure exactly how the samples will be used. They will have the data. Creating a new test would be easy. If students give up their DNA, they probably also give up how it’s used once it is turned over to the university.
Currently, there is no way for an individual to stop the state transportation department, Bay Area Toll Authority and others from selling the information they gather from motorists to third parties. State Senator, Joe Simitian, has submitted SB1268, aiming to change current practices.
The Palo Alto Democrat’s bill would give authorities 60 days to destroy any data that can be linked to specific vehicles or drivers. SB1268 also prohibits the agencies from sharing or selling information they collect about travelers.
Police could still get the information with a search warrant.
Simitian’s bill passed the Senate on a 24-10 vote Tuesday. It now goes to the Assembly.
Obtaining the information via a search warrant is the only way this information should have been collected. It’s quite incredulous of the state to charge people for tolls and then turn around and sell that information for more profit. Their job is to collect tolls, not to gather commuting habits or any other personal information about the commuters. Hopefully, the Assembly will pass the bill as well and the state can protect people instead of profiting off them.
